Jakub Szwed and Jay Gilligan compete for the first title of the 2016 season

The cutoff date for qualifying for the European Masters 2015 was November 23rd. If the cutoff date had been a week later, Jakub Szwed would probably have qualified. Why? Because of a small tournament held in Lublin on the last weekend of November.

Then Jay met fourth seed Jakub Szwed in the final, and again the match was decided by just one point. In this case, Jakub won the last point, took the title, and handed Jay his first Fight Night defeat in over a decade, when he lost to Manu Laude in the final match at the Berlin Juggling Convention 2005.

Jakub now leads in the 2016 race rankings with 200 points, and Jay is close behind with 120 points. In 2016, all the tournaments played after the cutoff date for the European Masters (which is yet to be determined) will count towards the 2017 race rankings.